what I ate and other stories

The Biggest Lover: BIGGEST LOSER Season 9 Preview

The rainbow coalition

[Disclaimer: This is not a “preview” in the sense of me knowing anything that you don’t. It’s a preview, like, I saw the first episode. Calm yourselves.]

New season of “The Biggest Loser!” I’m excited because these people inspire me to go to the gym. And I say that in the nicest way possible. That’s their job, actually. At one point in this episode, Jillian was screaming at the women, “You’re supposed to inspire America!” So, you can’t be mad at me for making left-handed comments. As the title of this post suggests, I’m full of love for these contestants. If you weighed me on a LOVE scale, I’d be totally obese. The biggest LOVER. (Probably not true. I’m kind of a jerk.)

(And the name from the post was inspired by a typo. So many great puns are inspired by typos, no?)

Okay, I’m only here to plug my favorites. This is only based on the first episode. I could live to rue these statements. (Probably not. Whatever. It’s a TV show.)

First of all, how can you not feel the love for Michael and Maria?

Michael and Maria: The Italian Stallions

First of all, they are from Chicago. In my personal experience, people from Chicago are awesome. (See: Roomie/Rachel.) Second, Michael is so sad and scared about being so fat. He cries about how he couldn’t possibly have imagined being more than 500 pounds in his worst nightmares. Michael realizes that even if he loses the equivalent of an obese person, he will STILL be fat. That’s heavy. (Pun kind of intended.) (Definitely intended.) And Maria seems like an incredibly nice lady. I know the “Jersey Shore” cast would love her.

Despite Michael’s giant challenge (ha… sorry), he has a great attitude on the ranch. When he loses enough weight (on the first week!) to get himself out of the 500s, he quips, “Are my abs showing?!” Michael, you are awesome. (Rachel predicts that once he sheds the pounds, he will have no problem finding a delightful Italian bride.)

Next faves… Cheryl and Daris. I don’t know what kind of name Daris is, but I’ll let that slide.

Daris and Cheryl: Curly and Curlier

Daris is sad because he’s the guy who never gets the girl. I predict that he’ll have a relationship with one of the love-lorn girls on the ranch (and there are several). I hope he gets a haircut on makeover week. He can’t hide behind that mop forever!

Jillian did a crazy crouch thing on Cheryl’s treadmill and screamed in her face until she unleashed Cheryl’s inner beast. And then Cheryl beat some shit with a boxing glove. Cheryl is liberated!

Also– I guess this episode was edited really quickly or somebody fell asleep on the job, because the title cards kept being messed up. Like, Cheryl would be talking and the title card would identify her as “Daris, 23.”

Last faves– and this is a little sad because they might be gone forever, already– were O’Neal and Sunshine.

O’Neal works for the Postal Service. (The real USPS, not the Ben Gibbard outfit.) O’Neal’s wife has to tie his shoes for him, and he feels really sad about it. And I feel really sad. But what really gets the tears flowing is Sunshine, who… I can’t even remember exactly what she said, but it had to do with feeling like her weight was holding her back, and boys never being interested in her, etc. Those kind of stories always get the tears flowing, because I have BEEN THERE girl. And they make me cry that much harder because I was never even obese. I just had low self esteem.

The first challenge was to ride a bike the same distance that the top 4 ran at the end of last season– AKA a marathon. I was excited to see them take that lovely ride, but it turned out that they were just doing it on stationary bikes that looked like non-stationary bikes. So each team member had to bike 13.1 miles, as far as I could tell. It wasn’t that interesting to watch, but luckily… editing. And the bottom two teams had to leave immediately. And O’Neal and Sunshine were in the bottom two! Nooo! But maybe in a month they’ll be back.

I am not a great runner, but I’ve worked my way up to a 10 minute mile on the treadmill. Pretty much the whole time I’m running I want to stop, but I think, “They did this on the first DAY of Biggest Loser season 8! If you can’t do this, what’s WRONG with you?” (I’m my own Jillian.) (I also think of my friend/co-worker John, who runs marathons. He’s running one this weekend. Good luck, John!) But the thirteen miles of biking seemed kind of weak-sauce to me, so today I got on the sitting down bike (the seat one hurts my butt) and decided to see how long a mile really takes. Given, I was not on the lowest setting (because… I wanted a workout, too), but it look me about 6 minutes to do a mile. So 13 miles x 6 minutes each mile (at least) x hard seat x being obese and sedentary… okay, that was a pretty tough workout for them. (I didn’t finish the 13 miles because I didn’t have time. Sorry, I’m not the best investigative journalist.)

But um, yeah… lots of tears. These people don’t have Abby-like trauma going on, but being sad and lonely is still tear-worthy. And their families cried and cried at the weigh-in. They need to lose the weight to live! (Or so the show keeps reminding us.) Run for your lives, biggest losers! You are going to liiiive.